War Paint
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: Bishamon just wants to escape the echoes of Tsuguha's screams ringing in her ears and the weight of her shinki's secrets on her chest. Instead of peace, she finds Yato wrestling with his own demons. They might be fighting each other on the battlefield again tomorrow, but for tonight the walls drop and the war paint comes off and they don't seem that very different at all.


**Note: Today (or technically tomorrow—the 11th) is my favorite (and only) sister's birthday. Bishamon is her favorite, so Bishamon and Yato it shall be. Have a wonderful birthday :) Love you bunches!**

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Bishamon tiptoed down the hall, hardly daring to even breathe as she called upon her meagre and mostly untried stealth ability. She was not used to sneaking about her own home like a thief in the night, and it showed in every creaking floorboard and stubbed toe. She was more used to fighting her problems head on than running away.

But everyone was asleep now, and if they weren't, she didn't want to attract their attention. Normally she relished being among her shinki, but lately it had been too much and tonight she just needed a moment to breathe. Emotions had been running high and sharp and painful, but now they were dulled by sleep and left enough room for Bishamon to deal with her own, for better or for worse. The muted ache in her chest was eclipsed by a blinding, viselike pain squeezing her heart, everything she had been trying to suppress.

She was supposed to be more open about her feelings with her family, but this was something they didn't need now. Kazuma wouldn't approve, but she couldn't bear to rely on him right now either. The memory of him killing Tsuguha while she begged him to stop was still too fresh in her mind. It wasn't fair and she knew it—he had been protecting her and did what needed to be done when she couldn't bring herself to do it—but she still couldn't quite bring herself to look him in the eye. She still trusted him more than anyone, but maybe she needed some time to settle her own raging emotions too.

Whatever the case, she didn't want to run into him tonight. Or anyone else. They were frightened and upset and didn't understand what had happened to Tsuguha, and Bishamon could do nothing to make them understand or ease their fear and grief. There was nothing she could do at all, and tonight that was too much to bear.

Despite her ineptitude in the stealth department, she ghosted through the silent halls unnoticed with only a moderate degree of noise to mark her passage. She drew in a deep breath as she slipped outside and pulled the door shut behind her, cleansing her lungs with the cool night air. It was a beautiful night, as all nights were in Takamagahara. Everything neat and ordered and perfect. It didn't match the chaos inside her head, and on a whim she turned for the shrine and descended to the lower realm instead.

This was risky business since it was the dark hours when ayakashi prowled the streets in droves and she was essentially defenseless, but she was a war god who could take care of herself. She couldn't afford to rely on her shinki for everything…especially in light of the newest threat the sorcerer posed.

The air was muggy and unpleasantly warm as she materialized on the city street, clinging to her skin like a damp, sticky woolen coat. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and considered returning to Takamagahara before deciding that the discomfort suited her mood. Besides, even with the oppressive weight thickening the air, it was much easier to breathe here without her troubled family pressing around looking for answers she couldn't give.

Thick clouds spread a haze over the veil of glittering stars spangling the night sky, but the moon hung bright and full and forced its silver gleam through the fog. The streetlamps and muted glow of the moon set the shadows looming between the buildings, but they provided enough light for her to wander down the street and lose herself in the maze of her thoughts.

The echoes of Tsuguha's screams rang in her ears and drifted out from shadowy alleyways, sharpened by the quiet of the night. Bishamon swallowed hard, closed her eyes against the shadows reaching for her, and pressed on. She could still remember the day she had named Tsuguha. She could remember the days after, filled with the girl's bright smile and wide-eyed curiosity and eagerness to learn. Tsuguha had died so young in her first life, and even younger in her second.

Bishamon would never forgive the sorcerer for this. She would avenge Tsuguha if it was the last thing she did, and she would hunt the sorcerer to the ends of the earth and down to hell itself.

She was already formulating a plan. It was still in the early stages and sounded absolutely insane even to her, but there was nothing holding her back. Kazuma wouldn't approve, but she couldn't risk dragging her shinki into this fight again, especially not her treasured hafuri. After seeing Tsuguha's fate, she would hardly risk subjecting another of her children to it. This was something she couldn't share with them, the burden of their secrets that she kept locked in her chest. If she had to go chasing myths and searching for fabled hafuri in order to protect them, then so be it.

She was so caught up in her sorrow and machinations that she didn't notice the voices until she was almost on top of them.

"–already said no. Leave them alone."

Bishamon stopped dead in her tracks and looked about wildly at the dark silhouettes of buildings lining the street in neat rows. That was _Yato_. What was he doing out here so late at night? And who was he conspiring with?

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides as she remembered Yato's flat expression when she begged him for help and the only answer he gave was to release Tsuguha. She wished she had slapped him a little harder for that one.

"Don't glare at me like that," said a different voice, thick with amusement. Bishamon's heart jumped into her throat. The sorcerer! "I already said I wouldn't touch your kid."

Yato was consorting with the sorcerer after all? Of course he was. She had suspected as much, and it was why she resented him so much for Tsuguha's death. Even if she was just taking out her frustration on him again, like she had done so many times before, the fact remained that he _knew _about the sorcerer and his abilities but he wouldn't _tell _anyone. If he had been less secretive from the beginning, maybe Tsuguha would still be alive. And if he was less secretive now, it would be that much easier to crush the sorcerer. Bishamon would do whatever it took, but it would be a hundred times harder with Yato protecting her enemy.

Maybe that wasn't _entirely _fair, but hearing him talk to the devil himself made Bishamon's blood boil.

What could she do? Every muscle in her body strained to charge forward, burst from the shadows, and destroy the sorcerer once and for all, but she had no shinki, no defense. She cursed herself for thinking it was a good idea to wander about the lower realm defenseless. Forget ayakashi—she had given up her chance to kill the sorcerer himself.

Cautious now, she crept down the street, slid between two empty-eyed buildings, and peered out from the shadows. Yato and the sorcerer stood silhouetted in the moonlight in the middle of the empty street, just outside the yellow ring of flickering light cast by the streetlamp. Bishamon couldn't see Yato's face since he was turned away from her, but the amusement suffusing the sorcerer's features was clear as day.

She wanted to run out there and _cut _it off his face, slice both of them to shreds, but she could only bite her lip until the cloying taste of copper filled her mouth and vibrate with impotent fury as she hid in the shadows like a coward.

_Think, think!_

This would be such a great opportunity if she had her shinki—surely she could come up with _some _kind of plan before the chance slipped from between her fingers. She couldn't do _nothing_.

She nearly jumped out of her skin as Yato coughed out a harsh, bitter laugh like a gunshot in the muggy silence clinging to the streets like a second skin.

"Like I'd trust _you_," he said bitterly. "You already chipped his name."

"Are you still holding grudges?" The sorcerer clicked his tongue. "That stings, Yaboku. It's not like I really _hurt _him, like Bishamon's whelp."

Bishamon stiffened and ground her teeth together. How dare he speak so dismissively of Tsuguha? She would _kill _him. She would kill him and grind his bones to dust and erase any sign that he had ever existed at all. Mere death wasn't good enough for him—she would _obliterate _him entirely.

"Leave Bishamon and her shinki out of this," Yato said sharply. "You had no reason to target them. She'll hunt you, you know. Now that Tsuguha's dead, she'll hunt you to the ends of the earth and she won't stop until she's destroyed you."

Bishamon blinked at his back, more than a little taken aback. That was…

The sorcerer heaved a sigh that didn't disguise the gleam in his eyes. "Yes, it's quite a bother. It's a good thing I have you to help me."

"I already said I'm not–"

"Of course you will." The sorcerer leaned forward to grasp Yato's chin and put them nose to nose, and his eyes were like steel despite the honey in his voice. "I'm the only thing keeping you alive. It's in your best interests to keep me alive too. You've been rebelling a little too long, kiddo. I'd hate to have to punish you again…or your kid. It would be a real shame to have to go there again."

The night held its breath for a long moment, and on its exhale Yato whispered, in a voice almost swallowed by the silence, "I hate you."

"That's not very nice," said the sorcerer with a pout. "I'm still your father. You should remember who you belong to." He smiled a wolf's smile and brushed his thumb across the god's cheek in a mockery of affection. "Poor Yaboku," he murmured. "Why are you still trying to protect them when you can't even protect yourself?"

Nothing moved in the lonely darkness, nothing even dared to breathe. Even Bishamon skipped a breath before deciding that she had had _enough_. Yato was a fool and a stupid bastard and clutched his secrets much too tightly to his chest, but he didn't deserve to be talked to like that.

Bishamon shuffled back a few paces, her feet sliding silently along the pavement, and bent over to run her hand along the ground. Her fingers closed around a handful of grit and sharp pebbles. Straightening up, she wound her arm back and tossed the debris back down the darkened street with a faint clatter. She scuffed her shoes along the street and slapped the soles against the concrete. Her footsteps rang out loud in the stillness.

_Stupid, stupid_, she cursed herself as she inched forward with exaggerated footsteps. Her heart lodged itself in her throat and hammered out a frantic beat until she couldn't breathe and thought she might be sick.

This could so easily backfire. All the sorcerer had to do was stick around and see who was coming. But he obviously liked to hide in the shadows and avoid confrontation until it suited him, so maybe…

"Sounds like we're about to have company," the sorcerer said in a hushed voice. "But don't worry, Yaboku. I'll be in touch."

Bishamon held her breath and peered around the side of the building again. The sorcerer had disappeared, leaving Yato standing alone in the street with shoulders hunched and head tilted toward the ground. Bishamon stared at his back. Her best option was to escape while she could and not push her luck, with the added bonus that she didn't have to deal with Yato at all. But still…

She waited a few seconds longer to make sure the sorcerer was well and truly gone before approaching Yato cautiously.

"Yato?"

He started and turned as if he hadn't heard her coming even though he must have. They stared across the empty space that stretched between them like the trenches they had spent centuries building against each other.

"Bishamon?" he asked haltingly. His eyes were too big and soft and sad as they gleamed in the moonlight, making him look both achingly old and painfully young at the same time. It drew Bishamon up short and her steps faltered. "What are you doing here?"

It was so disconcerting to see him stripped down to a vulnerable core without his masks that she couldn't think of anything to say. But then he shook his head sharply and put on a smile like war paint that instantly transformed his features back to the annoyingly over-excitable good-for-nothing god she knew. He did it with the ease of practice, like he had done it a thousand times before. And, she realized, he had probably done exactly that. It was as much armor as the shinki-steel she wore into battle, molded so carefully to his features that you could barely tell it was there at all.

And in that moment when he painted that fragile, defensive smile across his face, she knew she would never tell him what she had witnessed.

"Oh, you know." She waved her hand in a vague gesture. "It seemed like a nice night for a walk. Fancy seeing you around."

Yato's eyebrows climbed up his face in disbelief and the smile morphed into a scowl. "By yourself? In the middle of the night? Where are your shinki?"

"Sleeping, of course."

"Are you _trying _to get yourself killed?" He cast an uneasy glance over his shoulder and scanned the shadows. "There are all sorts of ayakashi roaming around at this time, you know."

Even though she knew it wasn't the ayakashi making him so anxious, Bishamon felt her temper rise anyway. Yato tended to have that effect on her.

"I can take care of myself," she said hotly. "It's not like you have Yukine either."

"But I'm used to being without a shinki for long periods of time," he snapped back. "I know how to take care of myself without them if I have to. You spend every waking moment with yours. You rely on them for everything. Stop being so prideful."

"That's rich, coming from you." She snorted and seethed, but her earlier malaise descended upon her again quite suddenly as it brought to mind her shinki huddled together at home in a daze of fear and worry and confusion. "Besides," she said more softly, "they could use a rest."

Yato's sigh lingered in the air as he half-turned away to stare glassily at the ground, the profile of his face shining pale in the moonlight while his eyes glittered like sapphire stars in the night.

"I'm sorry about Tsuguha," he said softly.

Bishamon closed her eyes. What was she supposed to say to that? Was she really so obvious? She should have known that she couldn't escape her ghosts no matter how far she ran into the night.

"I want to blame you," she blurted out before she thought better of it. "For not warning me, for not giving me the information I need about the sorcerer, for telling me to release her instead of a way to save her. But every time I'm blaming you for something, it seems to be my fault."

No wonder she had always hated him so much. More than anything else, it was because deep down she knew that he was her scapegoat. It was easier and less painful to blame him, but in the end it was still her fault. They had been at war for centuries because she had put on her war paint, slapped a target on the easy scapegoat, and fought smoke-and-mirror battles to keep herself from looking too closely inward. He was an idiot, but she was the one who had drawn the battle lines and built the trenches, no matter how enthusiastically he had reciprocated.

And right when they had finally started making their peace, the lines had been drawn again. The sorcerer was standing between them now, an impossible obstacle. She remembered Kazuma revealing what Yukine had told him—that Yato would die if the sorcerer did. Bishamon could rage at Yato all she wanted for fighting on the wrong side, but she couldn't blame him for fighting to live.

So here they were on the frontlines again, facing off as half-foes, half-allies. She hated how messy it was. She wanted to hate him like she had before, turn it back into a black-and-white battle. Even more than that, she wanted him to fight with her instead of against her.

_Give me something_, she wanted to say. _I know it's messy and we've both made mistakes and only one of us can come out of this victorious, but give me something to hold on to while it all falls apart._

Yato just sighed again. "It's not your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

That _wasn't _what she wanted to hear. There had to have been _something_. There had to be something she could do for the rest of her family if tragedy struck again. She needed to protect them and she was _failing_, and it was just like…

"It's like the Ma clan all over again," she mumbled to herself. Old, worn guilt settled in the pit of her stomach yet again. "I just…can't…"

"You still blaming yourself for that too?" Yato clicked his tongue in annoyance and scuffed his boot along the ground. "Let it go already. Not everything is your fault."

"But–"

"I'm not saying you were perfect or that there wasn't something you might've been able to do or something you messed up, but you have to let your kids grow up to take responsibility for their own actions. From what I understand, they messed up more than you did. Shinki were human, and humans make mistakes. It's their nature." The ice melted from his eyes as he glanced up to meet her gaze. "And we might be gods, but we're allowed to make mistakes too."

Bishamon swallowed hard as the words settled into her bones and smoothed out the knots of snarled emotion. They still hurt, a bone-deep ache to take the place of the more volatile cocktail of emotions, but maybe _that _was what she had needed to hear.

It wasn't an absolvement or an excuse or a miracle cure. It was just an acknowledgement, plain and simple and blunt. An acknowledgement that none of them were perfect, least of all Bishamon herself, and they all contributed their own mistakes to the problem and sometimes you just had to accept your part and let go of the rest without hoarding all the responsibility and wallowing in your failure. It didn't make things better, but it made her feel like she wasn't alone.

It was like Yato _understood_, and Bishamon realized suddenly that she had let her guard down and shown a little too much of herself. Maybe it was because she was too sad and worn out to maintain her distance tonight, maybe it was because she had caught Yato at a vulnerable time and that glimpse behind his walls lulled her into dropping her own. It was both an intensely uncomfortable feeling and a warm one, like they were somehow in this together again.

"Anyway," Yato continued absently, his gaze wandering away as he shoved his hands into his pockets, "it's more my fault than anything."

Bishamon frowned in confusion at the sudden shift. "But–"

"Father had no real reason to target you, especially knowing that hurting your shinki would bring your wrath down on him full force. He would rather pull the strings from the shadows and avoid drawing attention to himself, so it doesn't make sense."

"I thought so too, but still–"

"It was a warning to me." Yato turned away and began drifting slowly down the street without a backward look. "It was a threat for what he'd do to Yukine if I didn't start cooperating. You shouldn't have been involved at all. I'm sorry."

_"I'm sorry about Tsuguha," _he had said, and Bishamon realized suddenly that it wasn't just another platitude or condolence but a genuine apology.

She didn't want Tsuguha's death reduced to a mere warning, like there was no real reason for her to die except to send a message to someone else. Like she didn't matter at all. How could someone be so callous as to take a life—and in such a gruesome way—just to show that they could?

Bishamon stood rooted to the spot as she watched Yato walk away. The apology, a warning, the sorcerer's taunts of _again_. It almost sounded like…

"Did you lose one too?" she blurted out. She pressed her lips shut around the last word, kicking herself for saying anything.

That was prying and nosy and a big assumption to make. And it wasn't a question Yato would take kindly to answering, not when he was so guarded and close-mouthed about even much smaller things. She so expected him to just keep walking away and never look back that she was startled when he stopped short in the middle of the street rather than completely ignoring the inappropriate question.

But he said nothing, and the silence stretched out long and heavy and suffocating. He stared at the ground, head bowed, rather than turning around, and Bishamon was almost glad that she couldn't see his face.

"N-never mind," she stammered when the silence became too much. "I didn't mean–"

"Once," Yato said quietly. "A long time ago."

Bishamon was so surprised that he had answered at all that it took a moment for the answer to register. He had lost a shinki the same way she had lost Tsuguha. She didn't doubt that the sorcerer had a hand in that too, that the encounter with him tonight had dredged up old memories and rattled Yato enough to make him drop his defenses, and she felt a twinge of remorse for facing off against Yato on the frontlines. Maybe they had different goals and needs, but they were on the same side. Even if they had to fight against each other in the end, they weren't so different.

"I'm sorry," she said, but the words were like ashes in her mouth. This was the helpless platitude of condolence she had first mistaken his apology for, and it felt cheap and useless.

Yato turned finally, his face set in weary lines and his eyes shadowed. "It doesn't really get better," he said. "Shinki always take a piece of you with them when they go. It's bad enough if they just want to be released, and far more painful when they die. But losing them to _that_, to the secret you should have protected them from, hurts the worst. It leaves the biggest, ugliest hole, and it never quite heals. If you thought the Ma clan was bad, just wait and see what Tsuguha will do to you.

"You're tougher than I am, so I suppose you'll do fine." He shrugged and kicked moodily at the loose pebbles scattered about the pavement. "But I'm sorry to say that if you want reassurance about how it will all be okay, you came to the wrong place. It's hard. It hurts. It will hurt for a long time. But you pick yourself up off the ground and press on, because you've got other people who are still relying on you and it's a shameful waste to give up when Tsuguha wanted nothing more than to live. We die our shinki's deaths with them when we name them, and once they die again, we live on for them. That's our responsibility as their gods."

Bishamon raised her hand automatically and pressed it to her chest. Her skin felt warm and sticky, and the too-fast thumping of her heart pulsed through her fingertips in a wild cadence. She could almost feel that hole beneath her fingers, the skin stretched tight above the missing piece of her heart. She had lost many shinki over the centuries and they all left an ache in their wake, a hole with jagged edges where they had taken a piece of her heart as they went.

Tsuguha had been ripped out even more forcibly than the rest, and the hole she left was raw and bleeding. Bishamon thought Yato was probably right: it would hurt for a long time.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," she said, "but I think you're right."

Living on for the fallen was another platitude often offered, but it was different for gods. She had witnessed Tsuguha's life when she named her, died her death alongside her, and kept those secrets tucked close to her chest along with the name that should never have been remembered. She had used her own life to give Tsuguha a second chance at hers. Their lives and deaths were bound together. In naming Tsuguha, Bishamon had made a promise to give her life again as well as to carry her old life and death for her. And because of that promise, she was responsible for carrying this death as well and living the life she had pledged away.

Tsuguha was still her shinki, gone or not, and Bishamon would honor the bond she had forged with her until the very end. Not only for her, but for every shinki she had ever pledged her life to and every shinki she ever would.

"Yeah," Yato said with a strange sort of half-shrug. "Every once in a while I am."

His eyes glittered solemnly in the moonlight and that smile hadn't yet returned. With that shield dropped, he seemed less distant. Half the time they were miles away even when they were standing face to face, but here in the dark, they weren't enemies or rivals but two old, weary gods who had suffered more than their fair share of battle scars.

Whatever Yato's many flaws, he understood in a way no one else did. Bishamon couldn't share any of this with Kazuma or her shinki, but this most unlikely of confidantes seemed to know exactly what she was going through. She could see those jagged edges in his too-bright eyes and the scars layered just beneath his skin. They were _her _scars. She imagined that if she stepped close, she could press her heart to his and match up every scar there. It was a silly, fanciful idea—they were very different, with their own stories and troubles and heartbreaks—but in this moment, they were the same.

But in the next, Yato would smear his war paint across his lips and the smile would come up like a wall, and Bishamon couldn't take it right now. She was tired of handling it all alone—for one night, she wanted a companion to share her burden with her.

She lurched forward before she realized her feet were moving and closed the distance between them before stumbling to an awkward stop. Yato watched her with eyebrows slightly raised, waiting.

"Tell me something," she said, hating the desperation forcing her feet forward and her jaws open.

She didn't know what exactly she wanted from him, or how to ask for it even if she did. It hit her suddenly that he had a hundred stories like hers that he had never told, usually locked away behind the barricades he built up so high. Just like her. There was so much they didn't know, so much they were trying to hide from the world.

Maybe next time they met they would be on the battleground again, facing off as she tried to kill the sorcerer and he tried to stay alive, but for now she needed a companion more than an enemy. And maybe he did too. With their guard lowered and their battle gear strewn about their feet, they were closer than they'd ever been.

Yato tilted his head to peer at her quizzically, eyebrows nearly disappearing beneath the fringe of dark hair swept across his forehead, and Bishamon took an involuntary step back. Heat flooded her cheeks, and she cursed her own stupidity and maudlin break with reality. What kind of nonsense was that supposed to be? What did she really expect from _Yato_, of all people? They were barely even allies, much less friends. And he wouldn't share most of his secrets even with his _friends_.

"Come on," he said after a long pause. "I know this little place that's open all hours of the night. I'll buy you a drink."

"_You?_" she blurted out before she thought better of it, too stunned by his sudden capitulation. "Since when do you have money for that?"

He coughed out a funny little laugh and offered her a faint half-smile laced with a hint of mischief that was too soft and open to be the one he wore as armor. "Good point. You're the rich, big-shot god of fortune. _You _can buy the drinks."

"Hey!"

Yato draped an arm across her shoulders in a way she normally saw him do with Yukine and Hiyori, and steered her back down the street. In a moment of weakness, Bishamon let him. Pressed close, with the comforting weight of his arm grounding her, she could almost forget that the night had teeth.

"Well," he said, "I guess we'll have to flip for it."

She wished they could stay like this forever, fighting their demons side by side instead of killing each other with them. It was, she thought with a new wave of sadness, a real pity that he would die when she put her sword through the sorcerer's heart.

He was smiling at her again, joking, but there was a glint in his eyes that told her that he was thinking almost exactly the same thing. She reached up without thinking and brushed her fingers along his lips, intending to wipe the war paint right off his face.

"Don't smile," she said. "Not tonight."

The startled look faded from his eyes, and the smile slid off like water. "Not tonight," he agreed, the understanding heavy in his voice.

Tomorrow they might meet on opposite sides of the battlefield, but for tonight, for just a few stolen moments, it was them against the world.


End file.
